Detroit – The day after Kwame Kilpatrick was elected mayor in 2001, he put his diamond stud back in his left ear.
In a downtrodden city where older residents are a dominant voting bloc because so many younger people have left, Kilpatrick, 34, spent much of the campaign playing the hopeful grandson.
Four years later, he is himself looking for redemption, dogged by scandal and trailing in the polls weeks ahead of the city’s nonpartisan primary Aug. 2.
The increasingly contentious race is shaping up as a referendum on the contrasting styles of the current mayor and his lower-profile predecessor, Dennis Archer, whose former deputy, Freman Hendrix, is the current front-runner.
A third contender is Sharon McPhail, a member of the City Council. The council has frequently feuded with the mayor, most recently over how to erase a $300 million budget deficit. All three candidates are Democrats.
Kilpatrick, often referred to as Detroit’s hip-hop mayor, is a sartorially bold former college football lineman – part P. Diddy, part Bill Clinton. He is best known for controversies – having his cash-strapped city pay $25,000 to lease his family a Lincoln Navigator and accumulating thousands in questionable charges on the city’s credit card. Time magazine named him one of the nation’s three worst mayors.
Hendrix, 54, is a career civil servant, tall and lanky, a polished politician making hay with Kilpatrick’s shortcomings.
“Four years ago, Detroiters heard the promise, ‘Right here, Right now,”‘ Hendrix said, referring to the mayor’s last campaign slogan.
“They heard the promise; they heard the fast talk. This is what they got. Now I think what folks want is some plain speaking, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Hendrix spoke while holding the hands of Elizabeth Alexander, 74, and Thelma Bolden, 77, supporters flanking him on a couch, nodding in approval during a campaign stop at a senior center.